Surface mount technology (SMT) allows for components to be placed onto a printed circuit board (PCB), using techniques such as pick-and-place. A pick-and-place machine may use suction or some other technique to pick up a component, move it to the appropriate location on the circuit board, and place the component for mounting, such as by using solder, on the PCB.
Use of a pick-and-place machine to mount SMT components on a PCB and/or manual handling may occasionally damage SMT components, especially components that are structurally weak. For instance, referring generally to antennas, an antenna attached to a PCB by a pick-and-place machine may be bent or mounted at an angle (along any axis) off of the desired mounting orientation. Such bending or displaced mounting can result in decreased performance of the SMT component, especially in the case of antennas.